Other stereo output to multiple bluetooth speakers

[hmackerel]

I would like to be able to pair an iphone to two bluetooth speakers, and play music to create a stereo image through them.

The hurdles I expect are these:

1) the iphone must produce a stereo image audio signal, which means that two different channels of audio information are being output. I am inclined to believe that this already exists, since ear buds do play a stereo image.

2) the iphone must be able to pair with two bluetooth speakers simultaneously. I believe that this is ios and bluetooth version dependent.

3) it must be possible to split the channels and send each one to a separate speaker. I expect this to be ios and bluetooth version dependent.

Can anyone enlighten me as to the reality of the situation ?

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I was looking for a similar way to arrange a Quad system. It became a race toward perfection only attainable by building a custom 5 speaker monitor headset. Unfortunately, I think even then, achieving perfection gets smacked in the face by Einstein’s synchronized clock problem.

In the end, I just bought a couple old airport expresses, plugged two JBL Creature stereo speakers into them, positioned them, broke out the Quad mixes in Audition, sent each track to its dedicated output, knob-twiddled levels for a bit, accepted that the source was recorded on less than perfect medium to begin with, accepted that there is no timeless perfect at all but a continuously improving and changing technium and one can only ever plant a flag and call it good enough, and just got on with the enjoyment of early Pink Floyd terrorizing my dog with helicopters and mayhem.

 

[hmackerel]

Pretty funny. Good thing you didn't play in-a-gadda-da-vida. That could result in a whole different level of anxiety.

I didn't quite follow what you wrote. When you say "broke out the quad mixes" do you mean that you are playing the music from something other than the phone ?

What I am after is directing each of the stereo channels to a separate speaker, not playing the same composite audio through two speakers.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

What I am after is directing each of the stereo channels to a separate speaker, not playing the same composite audio through two speakers.

Ah yeah, that. In order to get that kind of control, I had to go over to the Mac, and use multitrack recording software with a proper mixer built in. I know there are a few multitrack recording apps for iPad & possibly iPhone that should allow this functionality, so you can individually choose which channels you want to send to a recording device and which channels send to monitors, but my guess is they’d need a separate, external hardware accessory, because iphone & ipads are restricted (at least by os, possibly even by their hardware) to decoding & playing 1 video and 2 audio channels at once, resulting in the annoyance of not being able to listen to two things at once, or watch one thing and listen to another, without the first stopping. Perhaps a home recording artist has a solution recommendation.

 

[jpepping]

Buy a couple of UE ROLL bluetooth speakers, the app allows you to connect two and have stereo. I used to do this all the time when golfing. Works great.

 

[AllergyDoc]

We have 2 JBL Flip 4 Bluetooth speakers we can put in stereo mode. We don’t use them that way anymore because we 2 HomePods now, which sound much better. The JBL app usually worked fine for me but others (on the App Store) complained that it didn’t work for them.